


Let Slip the Dads of War

by ArchetypeOfAdespota



Series: Oz and Damien Do the Dating [2]
Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Damien Had to Get His Douchebag Genes from Somewhere, Drama, Established Relationship, Except the Parents are Lords of the 8th Ring of Hell, Family, Fluff, Humor, Meeting the Parents, Other, Overprotective Dads, Poor Oz Though, as in Damien and his dad are dramatic AF, pit fighting, table abuse, the BLOOD DOOOOOME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchetypeOfAdespota/pseuds/ArchetypeOfAdespota
Summary: Damien takes Oz to meet his dads. That's absolutely gonna go fine.





	Let Slip the Dads of War

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is. Y'all wanted the sequel. Shoutout to TheGrimKeeper and monsterprom trash for A+ moral support and brainstorming. 
> 
> A personal headcanon of mine: Oz is never afraid, but always nervous. They curse this loophole in their immunity to fear each and every day.  
> Another headcanon: Damien's rebellious bullshit stopped working on his dads a long time ago. Sorry Damien, they were young and angry once too. You're just gonna have to stick to regular teenage whining. 
> 
> And on an even nerdier note- if you're curious about Damien's dad's names, I picked names from the actual list of the 13 demons lords that rule over the malebolge in Dante's Inferno.

“Oz, babe, how the hell are you so worked up about this? I thought you couldn’t feel fear or something like that. You are fear.”

Oz glances up just far enough to shoot their boyfriend a filthy glare.

“Nervousness and fear are completely different. We’ve been over this.” They say. They’re sitting on the decorative brimstone dividing wall that runs alongside Damien’s front sidewalk, hunched over with their head between their knees while Damien hovers over them looking completely unsure of how to help his partner through their nervous breakdown.

“Last week you backflipped off the school roof into a pile of jelly desserts because Polly dared you to, but this is your limit.” Damien’s tone is incredulous enough to border on awestruck. It does not make Oz feel any better.

In fact, they have to resist the urge to do another backflip, but this time right out of hell.

Maybe off the face of the earth.

Out of this dimension? Yeah.

Yeah, just literally anywhere that isn’t right here, having an anxiety attack on Damien’s front lawn and praying to any gods that aren’t offended by their blasphemous eldritch existence that his dads won’t look out the window, is a good place to backflip to.

“It’s just my dads, Oz. They wanna meet you, not rip your head off.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about!” Oz moans, smooshing their face into their hands and dropping their head back down. They take a slow, deep breath. Their voice is small when they add, “What if they don’t like me?”

”Oz…” Damien groans. He drops down onto the wall next to them and throws an arm around their shoulders to haul them closer. Oz wilts against him. “They’re gonna like you. Because if I somehow like you even when you’re having a freakout on my front lawn, then there’s no way you can’t win them over.”

Oz doesn’t lift their head, but Damien hears them snort past the hands still covering their face. He allows himself a victorious grin and goes in for the finisher.

“Besides. Even if they don’t like you it’s still a win for me. They can disown me and then I won’t have to take over the 8th ring when they finally kick the bucket! I can just move in with you. Get a job as a bank robber or a serial killer or something. We can be like one of those trashy sitcom couples Scott likes. Young and broke and in love or whatever.”

Oz’s shoulders shake with silent laughter, and they finally drop their hands from their face to give Damien a sly side-eye.

“That _Scott_ likes, huh?”

“I- yeah, _Scott_.” Damien flushes. “Did I fuckin’ stutter?”

He gives Oz a rough shove away as he gets up, but still offers them a hand. “Whatever, if you’re feeling up to giving me shit then I think we can get this shitshow on the road. My dads are waiting.” He glances over his shoulder towards the door. “Hope they didn’t look out the window or something.”

Oz shivers, but accepts the hand up. “I’m good. I’m fine. I got this. Its just a couple of demons. Whose only son I’m dating. Oh fuck.”

Damien hauls them to their feet and shoves them towards the door before they can work themself up again.

 

Damien’s house is a pretty standard hell mansion. Flagstone floors carved with black runes and forbidden knowledge, skull sconces on the walls with rivulets of blood dripping artfully from their eye sockets, elegant tapestries depicting gruesome and indescribable tortures. Oz hasn’t been here before, since Damien gets all weird about letting his dads know about his personal life. They like it though. Miranda was right, they do know how to put on a tasteful display of power.

“Yo, _dads_.” Damien bellows the second they walk inside. “We’re here!”

A voice echoes from the top of a staircase down the hall. “For fuck’s sake, Damien, how many times do I have to tell you not to shout?”

The demon that clomps down the stairs is… large. He’s easily four times Oz’s size, pound for pound, and when he reaches the bottom and makes his way over to them the floor actually shakes a little bit beneath his hooves.

“Oz!” He rumbles, reaching forward to greet Oz with a firm handshake that swallows their entire arm up to the elbow and leaves them feeling slightly bruised. “It’s definitely Oz, right? Hard to exist in this house the last few months without hearing your name. Damien just won’t shut the hell up about you! Oz this, Oz that. “Dad, Oz summoned an army of howler monkeys and released them into the principals office!” “Dad, Oz and I cloned a dinosaur and taught it how to DJ!” “Dad, Oz backflipped off the roof into a pile of jelly desserts!” “Dad, Oz-“ ”

“ _Dad!_ The _fuck?_ " Damien’s screech is high enough that his voice cracks. His dad throws his head back and roars with laughter.

“Well if you didn’t want to hear it, why did you subject me to it, eh?” He snorts and turns back to Oz, who is doing a very poor job at keeping the smile out of their eyes. Damien really talks about them that much? That is… supremely awesome. The most awesome. It makes Oz feel way less pathetic for how much time they spend lying on their couch composing their wedding vows.

“Alright, enough of that. Dinner should be ready soon anyway, no point in standing around the foyer. Oh, and call me Rubicante, yeah? Dining room’s this way.”

Rubicante bounds off down a hallway without any further ado, leaving a seething Damien and a delighted Oz to trail more slowly after him.

“Your dad is _awesome_.” Oz says, awed.

“My dad is evil incarnate.” Damien snaps. “The shit kind, not the cool kind.” His cheeks are so red they’ve started literally glowing with heat, and Oz is starting to think that this dinner isn’t going to be so horrible after all.

 

“Hello, Oz. My name is Calcabrina.” Damien’s second dad does not offer Oz a handshake. He doesn’t even get up, actually, just stays fixed in his chair at the head of the dinner table. “A pleasure to have you here. It’s high time we met.”

Oz freezes in place a few steps inside the dining room. Calcabrina’s tone can only generously be dubbed as warm. Cool would be slightly more accurate. ‘Obdurate’, maybe? Liam had used that one to describe himself last weekend, and Damien and Oz had had to Ooozle search it before they could laugh at him for being a tool.

“I- um. Yeah, it's-it’s very nice to meet you?” They stammer, then immediately wish for a dark enough shadow for them to crawl into and die. Calcabrina frowns.

Rubicante throws his husband a significant look as he makes his way around the table to his seat. Damien sighs and drags a hand down his face.

“I fuckin’ told him not to pull this shit.” He grumbles, just loud enough for Oz to hear. Oz flashes him a panicked expression, but Damien just shakes his head and propels them towards the table, muttering in their ear as he goes, “Don’t worry about it. He’s harmless, but he’s gonna be a total asshole for a bit before he calms down.”

Oz does their best to breathe past the knot in their throat while Damien pulls their chair out. It's dinner with Damien’s dads, not a public execution. One of them is even super nice, which is already way better than the worst case scenario where they both hate them. So, that’s technically already half a win? Totally. Oz has got this.

 

Oz has not got this. Damien’s dad is, in fact, a total asshole.

Not even the hot, crazy kind of asshole like Damien is either, just… garden variety asshole. Oz half expects him to produce a battle axe or a shotgun from somewhere and start polishing it.

Calcabrina barely waits until the servants have placed the whole roast ur-beast on the mirror-polished obsidian table and backed away in terror before he starts the interrogation. Oz eventually gives up on their dinner (which is a shame, the meat is burnt pitch black and perfectly seasoned) in favor of not being repeatedly caught with a mouth full of blood-pudding.

Damien and Rubicante are both stabbing the contents of their plates over and over, slowly reducing their steaks to pockmarked mush with a perfect, sullen synchronicity that Oz would love to give Damien shit for if they weren’t busy fending off Calcabrina’s onslaught.

“So you and your parents live in the overworld?”

“I’ve just got a mom actually.” Calcabrina’s eyes narrow. “And I don’t live with her, since she’s eternally bound to the shadow realms.” He’s practically squinting now. “I live alone? Near the high school?”

Damien shoves his plate aside and lets his forehead hit the table with a loud, petulant thud. His horns dent the stone. Rubicante reaches over and pats him heavily on the back, while Calcabrina completely ignores him.

“Well, its good to see that you’re so independent at such a young age. How do you support yourself?”

“Mostly bank robbi- _bitcoin. Mostly I mine bitcoin._ ”

Damien is making excellent progress beating his head through the table. He’s halfway there, surrounded by chips of obsidian that bounce with each new impact. His chair has somehow caught fire despite being made of solid stone. Rubicante gives up on calming him down and reaches for a bowl of chicken feet with a heavy sigh.

“And after high school, what do you intend to do with yourself?”

“I was thinking about being a psychiatrist, actually.”

...Yeah, Oz gets that reaction a lot. Calcabrina pauses with his meat-knife halfway to his mouth, blinking. Rubicante chokes on his food, but is grinning like a fiend through his coughing fit.

“No shit?” He says, reaching for his drink and talking firmly over Calcabrina’s attempt to steal the conversation back.

Damien finally manages to smash through the table and starts up a litany of fluent and impressively creative curses instead. His dads ignore him with a skill that suggests this is common.

Oz just sighs and sinks a little bit in their chair. “Because I can tell what people’s worst fears are? And sort of, take them away or make them worse if I want? It’s the only job I thought I could be useful doing in this dimension until I figure out how things work here a little bit better, because I’m still getting used to only having six senses let alone this mess of a job market-” Rubicante offers Oz a heartfelt and sympathetic nod. “-And the school guidance counselor had never dealt with a fearling before? Which makes sense since I’m the only one mom sent to this dimension, and, um.” Oh god no theyre babbling. “One of our classmates is really good at business stuff, and she said that if I was willing to help her take care of some people who could use a little bit more fear now and then she’d help me get set up and run my practice, which is actually a really good deal for Vera.”

They look to Damien. Before they’d arrived, he’d told Oz to be honest, (“Brutally honest babe, trust me. Hell does not like liars.”) but Calcabrina is kind of twitching a little bit and Oz isn’t really sure if that’s as bad as they suspect it is but –

“Well, that sounds… It sounds like you at least have some aspirations.” Calabrina says with a tight smile that’s a little bit too much teeth and crazy eyes to be friendly.

Ouch.

“Well, not to worry, we’ve gotten very familiar with unusual career aspirations in this house over the last few months. Damien tells us that it was you who encouraged him to tell us about his future career.” Which, wow that sounds backhanded as hell, but when Damien lifts his head from the head-sized hole in the table in front of him, he’s smiling. For just a second, Calcabrina meets his son’s eyes and his expression softens a bit. Rubicante reaches over and grasps Damien’s shoulder, shaking him gently. For a heartbeat, the moment is wholesome and familial. Then Calcabrina’s gaze snaps back to Oz’s and the warm fuzzy mood pops like a soap bubble.

“And I must compliment you on your idea of how to do it! We do love going to the fighting pits as a family. Actually, the fights are going on tonight! Imagine that. I was going to ask Damien if he’d like to go after we’d finished dinner, but I suppose it completely slipped my mind to ask you as well, Oz. Did you enjoy them when you visited last time?” His voice is silky smooth, all silver-tongued innocence.

“Cal…” Rubicante sighs.

“Yes, I did. It was a lot of fun. Damien was great.” Oz says carefully. They have a sneaking suspicion they’ve just been led into a minefield.

“Wonderful! It’s settled then, you must join us. I won’t hear a word otherwise.” Calcabrina grins and claps his hands officially. A fresh cadre of servants appear and whisk away the main course, replacing it with dessert in record time. Oz watches their plate go forlornly.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Damien groans. “For fucks sake, pops, I told you not to pull this macho shit. Oz doesn’t have to go if they don’t want to.” He throws Oz a serious look at the end, and a wave of gratitude washes over them. Damien really means it, they can leave if Oz doesn’t want to go.

But, the fights had actually been fun last time…

Calcabrina frowns at his son. “Damien, don’t be rude. Do you not want your partner to enter the fights with you?”

“That’s the not point! You’ve been grilling them all night and now you’re gonna try and shove them into the blood dome to prove some kind of stupid point, which you won’t do anyway because Oz is a fucking badass-“

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I do not appreciate your tone. Especially when you have a guest-”

Damien splutters. “A _guest?_ You’re gonna try and pull that shit when you’re the one who’s trying to-

“It's okay!” Oz interjects quickly. “I’d like to go.”

The two demons are halfway out of their seats, stretching across the table to shout at each other, but they both halt mid-tirade and turn to look at Oz like their heads are on matching swivels.

Behind them Rubicante pipes up, still diligently applying himself to his dinner. “That’s settled then. Now both of you sit down and finish your dessert or we’re gonna be late.”

 

So, Oz somehow missed the strong implication that they would be a slightly more… active participant in the games this time.

“Oh.” They say, looking up at the massive gate that will open to let themself and Damien into the arena for the next blood dome doubles match.

“You didn’t realize what you volunteered yourself for, did you?” Damien snorts. He’s leaning casually against the wall next to the gate, apparently unphased by the millennia of bloodstains blackening the brick.

“Okay, but to be fair there was a lot going on.” Oz laughs, but Damien scowls and hunches his shoulders.

“I… shit. I'm sorry my dad was such a dick. Pop’s usually the cool one, believe it or not. Dad’s the one who’s always on me to stop shouting and burning shit down and go work on my battleaxe technique. Pop’s actually the one who gave me my motorcycle, did I tell you that?”

Oz shakes their head.

“Yeah well, he did. Had no idea he’d turn into such a jackass the second I brought someone home.”

Oz blinks. “Wait, I’m the first person you’ve brought to meet them?”

“I-“ Damien falters, cheeks glowing hot pink once again. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Holy shit.” Oz murmurs, awed. “I am. I’m speeeeecial!” They coo, saccharine-sweet. They reach out for Damien with grabby hands. “You looooooove me!”

“Yeah, I do,” Damien snarls, “But that’s not gonna stop me from ripping out your spine and beating you with it.” He catches one of Oz’s hands and twists it behind their back, slamming them against the wall hard enough that it would bruise if Oz had normal flesh. The corners of their eyes crinkle in a smile, right before they go blurry and unreal at the edges, melting out of Damien’s grasp and turning him around until he’s the one pinned, the side of his face pressed to the brick.

“Sorry, don’t have a spine.”

Damien's answering snarl is cut off - from somewhere past the gate there’s a sickening crack, a scream of agony, and the roar of a bloodthirsty crowd.

“That’s our cue.” Damien says, and Oz lets him up. “You better make sure you put on a show.”

Oz snorts. “I’m surprised you're not telling me to stay out of your way and let you have all the good murders.” They joke, but Damien just holds up his hands and flashes them a lazy smirk.

“Oh no, this one’s all you.” At Oz’s blank look, he shakes his head. “Look, I know you're not stupid enough to have missed that my raging ass-kazoo of a dad thinks you’re a squishy wuss, and that this is a really fuckin’ poorly disguised test. Just, can you take this one? ‘Cause I know you’re not, and you know you’re not, but my dads don’t. So…” He sighs and reels Oz in for a hug, and very quietly whispers into their ear, “Look, just, put on a show okay? For me? I know it’s stupid and murder is supposed to be for personal reasons like fun or money, but they’re old fashioned like that. It would... mean… a lot to me.” He grits the last line out through clenched fangs.

Oz pulls back. Damien is very deliberately not looking at them, as though that’ll do anything to hide his blushing or the sweetness of the moment. “So, you want me to beat the organs out of whoever they put us up against, by myself, in the most messy and violent way possible, all in the name of impressing your parents.”

Damien smirks at them. “Yeah?”

“I really do love you.”

 

The roiling cloud of black terror covering the arena recedes, leaving behind nothing but pools of viscera, severed limbs, lifeless corpses, and Oz and Damien. Oz shakes a bit of brain matter off of their hand, and Damien pushes off the arena wall to stroll casually up to them.

There is total silence. The crowd is staring, still trying to take in the carnage that that had only been able to glimpse through the wave of horror that Oz had pulled across the pit to destroy their opponents.

Oz glances nervously upwards – one of the bodies is still dripping fluids into the sand from where it’s pinned to the ceiling of the blood dome with slowly undulating tendrils of darkness – and fidgets with the blood-soaked hem of their sweater.

“Sorry, was I supposed to kill them in a certain way? You said anything goes, but, you know. Um.” They look over their shoulder back to Damien, whose wild eyes and murderous grin are threatening to overtake his face.

The ceiling corpse finally slides free of the shadows and falls to the ground behind them with a wet crunch. An eyeball rolls across the ground to ping against their heel.

The crowd roars.

 

When Oz and Damien meet his dads outside the dome after the fights have ended, Rubicante claps them both on the back hard enough to send Oz staggering forward.

“That was one hell of a show, kiddo.” He roars, wrapping one massive arm around Oz’s shoulders and mussing their hair. “You are welcome back _any_ time, do you hear? I’ve got a couple of old enemies I’d just love to toss in there with you.”

Oz extricates themself as politely as possible while thanking him, then looks around for Damien and Calcabrina. They’ve moved off to the side, where Damien has his arms crossed, glaring at his dad. The staredown holds for a nearly a full minute, until Calcabrina sighs and throws up his hands. “Yes, fine, I’m very sorry to have doubted you.”

Damien raises a single, immaculately groomed eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And?”

“I told you I don’t like that tone.” Calcabrina frowns at his son. “But I suppose you’re right. Oz?”

Oz straightens up involuntarily. “Yes?”

Calcabrina offers them a hand. “I’d like to apologize if you found any of my conduct earlier this evening… off-putting. I assure you my only goal was to get to know the person my son cares so much for.”

They both ignore Damien’s incredibly tsundere protesting in the background.

“Oh, no it’s fine, I totally get it.” Oz all but trips over themself to accept the handshake.

“That is relieving to hear. I wouldn’t want to have chased you away.” Calcabrina smiles. “After all, I can't miss out on the chance to challenge you personally.”


End file.
